17 people ran 7 km to move mulch to protect Mabley Green's new saplings

There was an even bigger buzz amongst the Hackney GoodGym crowd this evening. The reason being a number of GoodGym'ers took part in the 'Love Run' at Finsbury Park on Saturday...and they totally bossed it! A big well done to all those that took part or supported and on such a blustery day too. Hackney GG's very own Emily (46mins) and Steve (52 mins) were particularly deserving of their round of applause.

So on to the task for tonight. After our warm up outside the Hackney base, the group ran down to Mabley Green to meet Damian, the Chair of the Mabley Green User Group. Damian explained that the Green is being turned into an edible park and that a donation fruit bearing saplings had already been planted at one end of the Green. The council had also delivered a few tons of mulch to bed the saplings in. The problem was they left the mulch at the other end of the Green so our task was to shift the mulch across the park to the needy saplings. 

Damian, calm-as-you-like, started handing out surgical gloves much to the amusement (fright?!) of the Hackney GG'ers. These are the same type of glove used in various horror/slasher movies, hence the sheepish looks. Nothing to worry about though as it was just for health and cleanliness purposes. 

Once we'd donned our fetching latex gloves, we were given a garden sack each and then headed down to the mulch pile. Filling the sacks to a safe level to carry and run with, we then ran along the perimeter of the Green to spread the mulch over the newly planted saplings. This will hopefully bed them down and give them firm roots and a fruitful life. We then ran back to the mulch pile and repeated the route a few times until the task was done.

Along this journey I managed to chat to a GoodGym first timer, Fergus, who was really enthused about the task, the cause, the running group and the whole GoodGym set up. Fergus, being the strapping Scotsman that he is, sped off into the Mabley Green night carrying his bag of mulch as if it were as light as a feather! Good on you! 

Once we'd wrapped up the task, we split into groups of varying running paces and headed back to base for our much needed warm down (I'm sure I heard a few creaks and groans!).

Mulch Love, Hass Noshib